was set to begin a three-yea prison sentence, all of whic embarrassed and angered th president. the bar spent weeks week prosecuting the questioning and at one point eve instructed justice officials i washington to draft a memo outlining legal arguments that could ve raised questions abou cohen s conviction and undercu similar prosecutions in th future the person on the receiving en of all that pressure, bearin the brunt of, it was that ma you see there on the right jeffrey berman, who was then the u.s. attorney for th southern district of new york. had been appointed by donald trump, and whose office wa prosecuted in the case against cohen. berman would later confirm, in his memoir, that barr tried to kill the investigation suggesting cohen s convictio on campaign finance charges be reversed and by mid 2020, barr an donald trump, fired berman so, essentially, barr and trum made sure that the potential case never materialized agains
key witness in that case wil of course be the guy who transferred the payments, right? his former lawyer and fixer, michael cohen. cohen himself will be joinin me in just a moment. remember, he has already don time for that very crime in october of 2016, just day before the presidentia election, cohen made the 130,000 dollar payment t stormy daniels to prevent he from going public with the story of her affair with trump a decade earlier she alleges that she met trump at a golf tournament in 2006 four months after melania trum gave birth to their son baron. later michael cohen pleade guilty to eight criminal charges including campaign finance violations and bag fraud. he told the court, as he tol congress later, who was really behind it all. i pled guilty in federa court to felonies for th benefit of, at the direction of, and in coordination with individual number one.
the ex president around th hush money payment to stormy daniels. so here we are now, more tha six years after the paymen took place, after michael cohe has been in and out of prison, and it looks like donald trump may actually be charged. this time it wouldn t be on th under federal law, it would be under state law instead of federal. but the same set of facts an hear, and so is the same witness at the heart of it all of course if this comes to fruition the credibility o that witness will be a point o attack from trump and his team they point to the fact tha michael cohen has also pleaded guilty to lying to congress, the real estate project that the trump pursued in russia. he lied for the person liste in court documents i individual one, whom cohen identified in court is donal trump. michael cohen s former persona attorney for donald trump he s the author of the book revenge how donald trump weaponized th department justice against his critics, and host of political
the day i was a violent gang prosecutor and there were deat threats. that s the one thing that line forsman in new york knows ho to do. they know how to protect prosecutors and protec themselves and they will do whatever they have to do as someone who worked i that office, under cy vance, and worked on this case, wha do you say to people who say why this case now? given all the things that he appears to have done and given the delay between 2016 and now given what appears to be skepticism by various entities and times to bring a case that would realize so much is i likely will on michael cohen s testimony. why do you say to people who say that i don t think anyone s goin to indict an actual sittin president. you have to wait for that to b done once that was done, i thin that there are different cases happening, or investigations, should say, on parallel tracks
the fact that trump was give noticed to testify in the gran jury and that s one of the las things you would do and th grand jury seems to be meeting with monday s wednesdays and possibly one other day durin the week and so they didn seem to be other witnesses after michael cohen so i think they re probably going to vote the case monday or wednesday o next week. and then what happens it s going to be sealed because this is an indictmen where there hasn t already bee an arrest so unless somebody leaks it we won t know about i and i would guess that donal trump will be the first person to talk about it and tell us get his story out in the court of public will it get out first he has to appear to b arraigned, and i think what is happening right now, and w have been reading about it all day, s law enforcement i working the secret and nypd an